They Don’t Want to Suck my Blood!

Each suborder has their own set of features, qualities, and characteristics. Megabats dine on the delicious nectar, flowers, juices, and pollen of fruit, that is why they’re colloquially known as fruit bats. Whereas Microbats tend to stay with a vast range of little to midsize insects. Because we could probably agree that fruit is sweet and filling, most people can know what tastes good to a fruit bat.

However, what about microbats? Do pests all taste alike, or are there bugs which taste better? Well fortunately, researchers at both the United Kingdom’s University of Bristol and the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario Canada really wanted to understand what Microbats prefer to eat the maximum. They decided to perform a study to find out their favorite meals! Keep on reading to find out what they discovered and how.

Bat Guano Studies

Known as little brown bats, Myotis lucifugus are a common species of microbat currently being threatened by a deadly fungal infection called White-Nose Syndrome. This fungus looks like a white powder which covers their nose and face. It disrupts hibernation, inducing bats to exert their energy reserves and perish.

Researchers wanted to learn about their surrounding environment, so that they started by extracting the DNA of insects which were found in the bat guano samples. They then identified the little areas where the insect DNA had been extracted, and paired that information to the databases of known insect DNA. This gave them the exact species of insect that bats were ingesting. And here’s what they found!

Their research implied that bats prefer to eat insects that live near bodies of water, such as rivers, creeks, streams, and ponds. In the research, they also concluded that small brown bats are “locavores”, meaning that they travel just a few hundred meters from home every night to hunt for food. Also, their diet varies with the seasons, and the sort of prey available to them.

Nuisance Bats

Bats, although intriguing to learn about, may also be a pest to a lot of property owners. They can enter homes and buildings, build nests, create enormous unsanitary messes, and trigger costly damages. If you’re having bat troubles, or suspect you have a bat in the attic or other area of your house, speak to a trustworthy wildlife or Raccoon Removal Melbourne FL firm right away for non-lethal bat removal services.